September 11, 2016

I remember when I lost Tom Hanks out of my life – it was May 2006, when The Da Vinci Code opened. Like many, I hated that film, and the central performance in my opinion did away with a lot of the really good work Hanks had done previously. After that, there were films like Charlie Wilson’s War and Larry Crowne, more films I didn’t like, from a man that had brought favorites like Big, Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile, and maybe his best and most underseen movie, The Road To Perdition. For me, he didn’t make a good live action film until Cloud Atlas (and I know many of you might not see that as the classic that I do), and that film broke the streak, as he did Captain Phillips, Saving Mr. Banks, and Bridge of Spies shortly after. Next up is Inferno, the third film in the Robert Langdon oeuvre, and let’s face it, these films are made for overseas audiences, as the last, Angels and Demons, earned $133 domestically, and a whopping $352 million from overseas audiences. Will we see Tom Hanks representing Sully on Oscar night? I think so.

Second spot goes to another opener, When The Bough Breaks, which is successful compared to its small, $10 million budget, but not to the breakout degree some were expecting. From Sony and Screen Gems, When The Bough Breaks reunites Morris Chestnut and Regina Hall, who were seen together in The Best Man franchise, but to lesser results than before. Bough bowed on Friday with a decent $5.3 million, earning more than half of the $10 million production budget on opening day. Screen Gems was able to commute the opening day number into a weekend haul of $15 million, pulling that in from only 2,246 venues.

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When The Bough Breaks is fairly review-proof, which is a good thing for a film like this. The Screen Gems release is currently 0% fresh at RottenTomatoes, but there have only been eight reviews counted at the site, so maybe the sample is just small. Those eight reviewers all call this a destined-for-cable movie, but audiences seemed to find something to like. The Cinemascore came in at a decent (considering the reviews) score of a B, well off the A- earned by The Perfect Guy, which opened to $26 million and finished with $58 million (against a $12 million budget). Screen Gems has a good thing going with these smaller budget films, as this $10 million effort joins Don’t Breathe in the top ten, and that one had over $60 million in the bank (against a $9.9 million budget) before the weekend began.

Speaking of Don’t Breathe, this horror thriller is still in third despite being out for three weekends, and it is still holding above the average drop for horror. This weekend, the other Screen Gems release pulled in another $8.2 million and fell a decent 48%. That hold is decent because we are coming off of a long weekend, which pushes amounts up the previous weekend and can create bigger drops in the following frame. Don’t Breathe pushes its domestic take up to $66.8 million – an awesome total for this $9.9 million release. The overseas gross is approaching $10 million, as Screen Gems has a real hit on its hands. It is currently the sixth biggest Screen Gems release ever, and will move past Think Like a Man Too ($65.2 million) and Obsessed ($68.3 million) very shortly.